---
title: "Accessibility Checker Rule Help: WCAG20_Table_SummaryAria3"
---
import "../../../styles/ToolHelp.scss"
import { CodeSnippet, Tag } from "carbon-components-react";

<div className="toolHelp">
<Row>
<Column colLg={16} colMd={8} colSm={4} className="toolHead">

### The data table has no summary

<div id="locLevel"></div>

Data tables should have a summary that gives an overview of the table

</Column>
</Row>
<Row>
<Column colLg={11} colMd={5} colSm={4} className="toolMain">

### Why is this important?

A table summary provides a brief overview of how data has been organized into a data table and is specifically useful when the table is large with many rows and columns or when the table has a complex structure (multiple row or column headers). The table summary should not duplicate the caption.

<div id="locSnippet"></div>

### What to do

* Add an `aria-labelledby` attribute to the `<table>` element. It must point to visible text on the page that is meaningful as its summary;
* OR, add an `aria-describedby` attribute to provide a brief overview of the data table;
* OR, add an `aria-label` attribute to provide a brief overview of the data table.

Note: In HTML5 the `summary` attribute is obsolete and should be avoided.

For example the following example uses the `aria-labelledby` to provide the table summary:

<CodeSnippet type="multi" light={true}>  &lt;p id="tblSummary"&gt;The following table shows the number of boys and girls in each grade of an elementary school.&lt;/p&gt;
    
    &lt;table border="1" aria-labelledby="tblSummary"&gt;
     &lt;tr&gt;
       &lt;th id="class"&gt;Class&lt;/th&gt;
       &lt;th id="teacher"&gt;Teacher&lt;/th&gt;
       &lt;th id="boys"&gt;# of Boys&lt;/th&gt;
       &lt;th id="girls"&gt;# of Girls&lt;/th&gt;
     &lt;/tr&gt;
     &lt;tr&gt;
       &lt;th rowspan="2" id="1stgrade"&gt;1st Grade&lt;/th&gt;
        &lt;th headers="1stgrade teacher" id="MrHenry"&gt;Mr. Henry&lt;/th&gt;
        &lt;td headers="1stgrade MrHenry boys"&gt;5&lt;/td&gt;
        &lt;td headers="1stgrade MrHenry girls"&gt;4&lt;/td&gt;
     &lt;/tr&gt;
    ...
   &lt;/table&gt;</CodeSnippet>

</Column>
<Column colLg={5} colMd={3} colSm={4} className="toolLeft">

### About this requirement

[IBM 1.3.1 Non-text content](https://www.ibm.com/able/requirements/requirements/#1_3_1)
[WCAG 2.1 HTML technique H73](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Techniques/html/H73.html)

### Who does this affect?

* Blind people using screen readers
* People with low vision using screen readers

</Column>
</Row>
</div>

export default ({ children, _frontmatter }) => (<React.Fragment>{children}</React.Fragment>)
